


profound and articulate

by falseaxiom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falseaxiom/pseuds/falseaxiom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginnings of a significant (if slightly confusing) rapport, anatomized in seven parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. amour-propre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all the times you've been told by Lalonde that your lexicon is astonishingly large and disturbingly vulgar, you can’t help but think that a few crucial words are left undefined. More specifically, "pride", and all variations thereof, seem to be missing from your speech entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> amour-propre (french): pride, self-esteem
> 
> in which karkat has something like hemophobia and the obvious self-esteem issues. a birthday gift for a super wonderful friend! i hope you like it bro :V

For all the times you've been told by Lalonde that your lexicon is astonishingly large and disturbingly vulgar, you can’t help but think that a few crucial words are left undefined. More specifically, "pride", and all variations thereof, seem to be missing from your speech entirely. How could they not be? In your eyes, there isn't much of anything to be proud of, anyway, not even with the ridiculously low expectations you hold everyone to, including yourself. (What's that? Strider's compiled an entire Midi Fighter's worth of samples that feature exclusively you shouting insults at him, _and_ he's remixed them into a reputable set of "beats so ill they'll make your _pants_ shit their pants"? Excellent. You could not give even a fraction of an airborne fuck.)

Pride certainly seems to be an issue with you, one that can easily be seen by the untrained eye, and it's no secret why. You don't know why you bother hiding it at this point. Perhaps, (a), the symbol printed square on the chest of your sweater in warm grey provides you with a sense of nostalgia or familiarity, but (b) is far more likely, in which every drop of candy red tainting the inner walls of your veins disgusts you to no conceivable end. Getting the smallest and lightest of bruises can send you into hysterics, at which point you hole yourself up in your respiteblock for a good few days and refuse to speak to anyone but the Mayor.

Sometime during your third perigee on the meteor, you find yourself rearranging your meager collection of salvaged novels by title font, simply because there is nothing else to do. As you take out one of your favorite romances, entitled something elegantly long and printed in Century Gothic, you pause to leaf through the pages and reread a chapter or two. Your thumb slides against the edge of a page the wrong way, though, and before long, pinpricks of red start collecting along a small, fresh cut on your fingertip.

"Fuck," you whisper, and you drop the book haphazardly as you stand up. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," you repeat to yourself as you push open the door and sprint down the hallway like a marathoner on his last mile, desperately searching for an ablution block. You remember one being just around the corner and turn, only to find yourself on your back just a few seconds later. You mumble something profane ("fuck", most likely); your head knocked against the metal floor, and it aches dully.

Also on the floor: one Dave Strider, clutching the back of his head and cursing softly. "Goddamn," you catch near the end, as he's standing up, "probably got a nasty bruise there." He notices you still getting up a few seconds later and looks surprised, almost as if he can't believe that he fell because he ran into someone. "Evening, Vantas," he says casually. He kneels down and offers you a hand. "In a hurry?"

You swat away his hand and stand up on your own, hiding your still-bleeding thumb inside a closed fist. "Yes, I am, fuck you very much," you retort, "so I'd greatly appreciate it if you fucked off to some opposite corner of the meteor and wrote some more shitty raps, or whatever it is you do in your spare time."

He feigns something like offense and crosses his arms. "Whoa, okay, pal. First of all, don't knock the raps. I've seen you bob your head and tap your foot to my deadly rhymes whenever I play them in the commons, so don't even go there."

You scowl. "I don't--"

“Second,” he interjects, which makes your scowl deepen, “you don’t really look like you’re in desperate need of the shitter, so what gives? Why are you running around and bumping into innocent, handsome bystanders like a headless chicken?"

"None of your damn business," you spit, pushing past him. "And next time you see me walking towards you, move out of the way."

You manage to get the door open and step inside the ablution room without hearing another word come out of his mouth. You keep your fist clenched and use the other one to rummage through the medicine cabinet, trying to find a bandage. "Shit, where are they?" You dig through bottles of cough syrup and aspirin before you realize that Dave is standing (or, well, leaning) in the doorway, just a few feet away from you.

He barely gets out a sigh before you turn on your heel and throw a punch, aiming right between his tinted lenses. You're sure it'll land for a split second but he--he just _catches_ it, like your fist is a softball thrown underhand at some shitty little-league game and nobody's keeping score. You'd be impressed if it were anyone else. You try to pull your hand away but he keeps a grip on it, impossibly strong despite looking nonchalant.

"Christ. Remind me never to play the 'guess who' game with you." He gives you the tiniest smirk and lowers his hand, consequently lowering yours in the process.

"You're such an asshole," you growl, making another attempt to pull yourself free. It's unsuccessful.

"Oh, Karkat, you're not _just_ figuring that out, are you?" The way he says it--kind of amused, just short of laughing--makes you want to tear your hair out. Or his hair out.

"Would you please shut the fuck up and let go of me?" Your papercut is pressed against your palm, and it stings.

Dave softens his grip on your fist, ever so slightly. You think that this is your chance to escape, but then, he puts his other hand over yours and smooths it flat. He moves your thumb off to the side and closes your hand into a fist again.

You watch, too stunned to break away, and look up at him when he's done. His hands are still a shell around yours. They're oddly warm. "What the _fuck_ \--"

"First rule of close combat," he starts, and you're beginning to think he has a thing for interrupting people. "When you strike with your fist, make sure your thumb is on the outside. Shit's how your digits get snapped in half like weak-ass toothpicks."

"Don't you dare fucking lecture me on the proper techniques of bashing your head in," you hiss, but you're getting nervous; now that your thumb's on the outside, he could see the cut.

"Just some good advice from your friendly neighborhood Strider, bro." He lingers for a moment before letting go and shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, well, fuck off. I don't need it." You pull your hand close to you and turn back to the cabinet, continuing the search for something, _anything_ , you could use to cover up your wound. It's still bleeding, and your pusher's beating fast--did he ever catch a glimpse of it?

It only takes a few seconds for Dave to end up beside you, peering into the cabinet with a seemingly disinterested stare. "What are you looking for, anyway?" he asks.

"What did I just say to you?" you shoot back, getting more annoyed by the second. You stop pushing around medication to give him a hard glare. "Fuck. Off. I'm in the middle of something here."

He tilts his head. "If you're looking for bandaids, you're not gonna find any in there."

Your glare falters, and you step back, keeping your hand curled against your chest. He saw it, there's no doubt now.

"It's cool, though," he says quickly, startled and a little confused by your reaction. "I have some in my 'dex, if you really need one." You stare at him in disbelief as he decaptchalogues a box of bandaids and pulls out a small, square one, unwrapping it. Then he reaches out to you. "Gimme your hand."

You shake your head, moving farther away from him. You want to glare at him again, but it would be pointless; he knows, and you don't have the willpower to pretend that it was ever the kind of secret that he could never find out.

"Karkat, come on." Dave wiggles his hand slightly in encouragement. "I don't bite, I promise."

You mull it over for a few seconds before inching closer, and you put your hand in his, palm-up, so that the cut shows. He sticks the bandage right over it and lets go, throwing the wrapper in a nearby trash can. "There. All better."

You pull your hand away again, hesitantly this time. You're not sure what to do.

"Gotta say, Vantas, I didn't expect _you_ of all people to get so pissy about a papercut," he admits. "I mean, I know that you hide out a lot right after you accidentally get hurt, but this seems kind of wimpy."

"Gee, I wonder why I have a panic attack every time my blood decides to come up to the surface as if to say, 'Hey, fuckwit, now everyone in your immediate vicinity knows what color I am!'" Your words have a very sharp and obvious edge of sarcasm to them. "It's almost as if I was practically _raised_ to hide the singular quality that denotes my value as a member of society!"

Dave doesn't quite seem to get the memo. He shrugs. "I dunno, man, your blood looks pretty normal to me. I don't really understand why a bunch of grown adults would go apeshit over some sick scarlet."

You're so shocked by his ignorance that you actually feel like you have to sit down, but you keep standing just to spite yourself. "You wouldn't get it," you say, stepping forward and jabbing a finger at him. "You've never had your life depend on you making it through the day without getting a bruise, or a scrape, or a goddamned papercut. You've never been afraid of growing up and having to die the very _second_ those drones find out you're ten feet clean off the spectrum."

This time it's his turn to step back. He puts his hands up in defense. "Whoa, I didn't mean to--"

"And you," you continue, because like hell are you going to let him interrupt you one more time, "have _never_ been too scared to even _cry_ about how shitty your life is, because, guess what? Your tears could give away your dirty little secret, too! Those fuckers are out to get you, no matter how good it feels to let them fall."

He seems genuinely concerned by everything you're saying, but he's still too surprised to say anything. You take this rare opportunity to keep shouting at him. "My entire existence is just paradox space concentrating every error it could possibly make onto one mediocre, eternally miserable being. I'm a _mistake_ , Dave, and I'm just trying to cope with the fact that that's all I'll ever be. So excuse me for doing the one thing that gives me some false sense of security."

After one very long bout of silence, he draws in close and puts a hand on your shoulder, gently. "I understand," he says, his voice startlingly quiet.

You almost shove him off, but you don't just yet. "How could you possibly know what it's like?" you say harshly, staring him down.

Dave takes a deep breath, in, out. Without saying a word, he slips off his shades, hangs them on the collar of his shirt. He blinks to adjust to the light before turning to look at you again.

You can't breathe for about eight seconds. His eyes are intense, a burning vermillion, so full of emotion and so lacking in brightness at the same time. They're warm, but they're also kind of sad, like a dying fire. Most importantly, though, they're _beautiful_ , strikingly so, in a way that you would never be able to admit to him. You want to say a million things but not a single one makes its way past your lips.

Your eyes stay locked for a while before he quickly puts his shades back on. He exhales quietly. "Let's just say that you're not the only freakshow here."

He pats your shoulder twice, then turns to leave the room. And you're left standing there, holding your bandaged hand to your racing bloodpusher and wondering just exactly what made that moment so poignant. For the first time in a long time, you let yourself remember that you made his whole universe, and by extension, him, and you can't help but feel a little proud that you created something so strange, and yet, so wonderful.

Perhaps "pride" isn't as foreign a word to you as it used to be.


	2. affinité

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As you've learned from experience, being a hermit is easier said than done. You can't exactly stay in your room for as long as it takes your cut to heal; you still have to participate in unpleasant activities that are necessary for your survival, like eating and bathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> affinité (french): affinity, empathy, propinquity

As you've learned from experience, being a hermit is easier said than done. You can't exactly stay in your room for as long as it takes your cut to heal; you still have to participate in unpleasant activities that are necessary for your survival, like eating and bathing. Replacing the bandage can sometimes be a hassle, since none of the ablution rooms nearby have the sticky ones that Dave gave to you (which is apparently a normal human thing, and not a bizarre, sort-of-ingenious invention that Rose alchemized on a whim), or any bandages at all, for that matter. Eating is still the most inconvenient, though, considering that just about anyone could be in the kitchen area, and if they see you, you'll be forced to acknowledge them and/or endure a mildly-concerned questioning of your whereabouts for however long you'd been gone. Depending on the person or group of people, that last part can vary greatly in both subject matter and amount of time wasted.

It's been four days since you gave yourself a papercut, and it's finally healed to the point that you can take off the bandage. You toss it in the trash bin under your desk and examine your thumb. The wound is only a slightly lighter, warmer grey than the skin around it--barely noticeable, especially since it was fairly small to begin with.

You decide that being gone this long is already kind of pushing it, and you get up from your desk chair, walking over to the door. Just as you turn the knob, though, you hear footsteps, impossibly light and fast and quiet. They travel away from your block and down the hallway. You open your door quickly and look down either side, but you see no one. You chalk this up as a side-effect of your self-amplified cabin fever and move on.

You make your way to the kitchen before you do anything else, because living off of two to three cans of Earth beans (that you hurriedly grabbed without first inspecting the labels) for over half a week is something you need to recover from post-haste. Thankfully, there's no one there, so you take the time to sort through the cans for your "favorites"--that is, the ones that are the least un-appetizing, since the nonperishables that most closely resemble your home planet's meals are something called "meatloaf" (human grubloaf, perhaps?) and another thing called "tomato sauce" (probably not human grubsauce, but it's actually not half-bad). You end up finding the former somewhere towards the back of the pantry and open it, which does take a considerable amount of time, given your impatience and the fact that the only can opener on the meteor is just really, really shitty.

Once you've gotten the lid off and a spoon in, you sit at the counter and start eating. Halfway through the can, as you find yourself wishing you had something to eat that didn't taste like a twice-vomited Dumpster reject, Rose and Kanaya walk in, speaking in hushed tones. Rose sees you first and falls silent, as if she's surprised that you're there. Kanaya follows suit, and they both give you a small smile. You look up at them and hesitantly put your spoon down.

"Good morning, Karkat," says Rose, moving to sit across from you. You don't know how she knows it's morning, but you don't question it. "How was your little vacation away from what remains of civilization?"

"Absolutely fucking delightful," you reply without venom, partly because Rose can already detect sarcasm from a universe away with earplugs on, and partly because she sort of scares you. "The food was bullshit, but the sightseeing was pretty interesting. I was outside for so long. Look, I even got darker." You roll your sleeve up slightly, and of course, there's no apparent or existing difference in skin tone.

Kanaya clicks her tongue and sits down next to Rose. "That's no way to respond to a polite question, Karkat, and you know it."

Her tone immediately makes you feel a little guilty. How does she do that? "Sorry," you say, rubbing your neck. "I'm just on edge, I guess."

Rose taps her fingers against the counter. "That's alright. Who wouldn't be, in a situation like ours?" She looks behind her, out at the corridor, and presses her lips together. "Although, you might have more special circumstances."

You tense up. Everyone generally knows why you disappear all the time, but only about half of them (namely, Kanaya, Terezi, and now Dave) are aware of the privy details to what you're trying to hide. Could Kanaya have told Rose? You suppose she wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but having _another_ person in on it just makes you anxious.

"Lord knows I could never stand to spend time with Dave, and Dave alone, for four days straight," she continues, turning back to you. "But I suppose, in a ginormous rock that's hurtling at a million lightyears per hour through seemingly empty space and is predominantly populated by females, the two remaining sane males would 'buddy up' and 'do guy things for a while every now and then', so to speak."

You relax slightly, but you raise an eyebrow at her nonetheless. "Excuse me?"

"A direct quote from Strider himself," Rose explains. "I do believe I've seen him travel down the corridor that your room is located along more than once in the time that you've been gone. I can only assume that he's been spending time with you, unless he lied to his own sister the first time I caught him."

That would certainly explain the footsteps. You're not entirely sure how to respond. "Sure...?" you say carefully, though you know it's pointless to lie to both a Seer and the troll equivalent of your "mom friend".

Kanaya frowns. "Do you mean to tell us that David has not _once_ spoken to you in the time that you've been hidden away?" she asks, obviously concerned.

"Well, uh," you respond, looking down, "I wouldn't say 'not once'. But yeah, for the most part."

The two girls share a look. "Strange," says Rose. "I don't think that any of the other rooms in that particular hallway harbor anything of interest to my brother."

"Unless he was..." Kanaya adds, but she trails off. Both of them are quiet for a moment before they start giggling, sparing glances at you and at each other every couple of seconds.

"What?" you ask, already having a faint idea of what Kanaya could have wanted to say but needing confirmation. "What are you two wrigglers laughing about?"

Rose waves you off. "Oh, nothing important," she says coyly.

"But the next time you hear footsteps," says Kanaya, "open the door as quickly as you can." Then both of them grin at you in a way that gives you goosebumps.

The two of them stand up and head in the direction of the commons, and you spend the rest of your meal wondering why Dave kept walking past your door without saying anything, and why neither Rose nor Kanaya bothered to give you the answer.

\--

It takes you roughly two days, during which Dave walks by your room four times, to catch him in the act, and when you finally do see him disappear around the corner, you exit your block and start running. Although his legs are much longer and his stride is much wider, you somehow manage to catch up to him and tug on his cape hard enough to make him stop. He turns around and gives you a small wave, like he was just walking and you happened to run into him.

Your grip on his cape tightens. "Alright, Strider," you say, scowling, "what's the big fucking deal here? Why do you keep walking past my respiteblock for no apparent reason?"

Dave shrugs. "Can't a guy go for a stroll around the meteor without getting ragged on?" he asks innocently.

"That's not what you were doing, and we both know it," you counter. "Just tell me what's going on. Are you eavesdropping on me? Is that it, you sick fuck?"

"Holy shit, dial it down, Vantas," he responds, putting his hands up defensively. "That is absolutely not what I was doing, I swear."

"Then _what_?" you ask, growing impatient.

He hesitates for a good five seconds before looking down. "Checking up on you. Kind of."

You're taken aback by his response, and your scowl fades. You let go of his cape. "Why?" you ask, and that's the only thing you can think of.

"I dunno." He scratches at his arm. "Finding out the real reason you keep sealing yourself off like Patient Fucking Zero struck a chord with me, I think. Something here"--he taps a fist against his bloodpusher, softly--"told me that you needed to talk it over with someone who gets it."

You stare at him in disbelief. "You say that, but I've noticed a distinct lack of proof that you actually, in fact, 'get it'. That, and you haven't formally spoken to me in six days."

He grimaces. "Yeah, the 'talking' part never really happened because I kept chickening out."

"Dave Strider, lacking the shame globes to approach and comfort a so-called friend in need?" you ask, almost amused. "I must be losing my fucking marbles."

"Don't make it sound pathetic," he replies. "I'm just, y'know, not that good with handling feelings. Especially other people's feelings."

"Then why attempt it in the first place?" You cross your arms, awaiting a response.

" _Because_ ," he stresses, "as much as you think I don't know what it's like, I do. And if my invasive pseudo-therapist of a sister has taught me anything, it's that working through shit with someone who's been through the same is a lot more productive than shoving it down and letting it fester inside you like bad sushi."

You want to roll your eyes, to tell him off, to show him that he's _wrong_ by all accounts, but you can't bring yourself to. The fact that Dave cares about your problems, even so much as to approach you with the intent to share the burden, makes you feel funny inside. Trolls don't generally care about each other to this extent, not even if they're moirails (at least, not in your experience), but humans evidently do. And, although you're five-hundred-percent sure he's never been through anything close to what you have, it's almost touching that he's trying so hard to find a way to connect.

You wouldn't dare tell him any of that directly, though, so you try to find something more insulting to say. You settle for smacking his shoulder and scolding him. "If you didn't want to get caught being such a cluckbeast, you should've _flown_ , dumbass."

He laughs a little and rubs his shoulder. "Totally slipped my mind," he tells you. "I'll remember it next time, though."

"Don't be ridiculous," you respond, grinning ever so slightly. "Next time, the door will be open."


	3. amitié

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, at least I'm here now to fill in the undoubtedly large, Grand Canyon-esque gaps in the story that is my decidedly not-shitty-enough life, in the eyes of Karkat Vantas," he tells you, but he does so without a hint of malice. "Shit's wide and deep as the fucking Mariana Trench, so watch your step."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> amitié (french): friendship, amity, fellowship

You, being ever true to your word, leave your door open for Dave the next day. He doesn't come around until what you assume is about late afternoon. Predictably, he walks right in, hands in his pockets, with a relaxed-looking gait but a light-sounding step. If he was ever nervous before, he certainly doesn't leave a trace of it now.

You turn from your husktop (currently playing "Troll Hitch") to look up at him. You have no idea what to say--"hello" is too formal, "sup" wouldn't sound right coming from you, "good afternoon" doesn't really make sense--so you just stare with an expression that you hope is as imperceptible as his.

After a full ten seconds of silence, Dave suddenly clears his throat. "Hey," he says plainly, giving you a small wave.

"Hey," you repeat, leaning back a little in your desk chair. You're kind of mad that you didn't think of "hey" first, but it doesn't matter much at this point.

Without another word, Dave walks towards your recuperacoon, nestled in the far corner of your block, and kicks it lightly. "What, no bed?" he asks casually, but it almost sounds condescending.

You stand up immediately, hands balled into fists. "That _is_ my 'bed', you supercilious fuck," you exclaim, your volume just short of actually shouting. "And I didn't leave my door open for you so you could criticize my furniture and kick it up with your filthy sneakers."

He turns back to you with a slight look of hesitation (and guilt?) on his face. "Easy, Karkat. I'm not here to be the Simon Cowell of slimy-ass interstellar berths, or whatever."

You groan. Even his apologies are roundabout, vague, and off-topic. "What does that even mean?"

He waves your question away. "Not important. Just try to picture me impersonating a stuffy Briton, but with my drawl fully intact. Wouldn't last five words without throwing in a 'y'all' for compensation."

"Jesus fuck, Dave, I thought your original intention behind visiting my respiteblock was to have a _feelings jam_ ," you complain, rubbing your temples with two fingers. "Now you're just going miles off the goddamned tangent and referencing human celebrities I have no knowledge of, in an attempt to make a joke that literally no-one in this room besides _you_ would get."

This time, his guilty expression is at least a bit more apparent. "Sorry," he says, and that's probably the most straightforward thing you've ever heard come out of him. "We should probably get to the 'jam' part, then."

Before you have any chance to let out an exasperated "thank you", Dave sits down right where he was standing, legs crossed in the way that four-sweep-olds would during schoolfeeding. You roll your eyes and get up out of your desk chair, sitting in the same position next to him.

He leans tentatively against the side of your recuperacoon and exhales softly. "So, where should we start?"

You cross your arms over your chest, covering the symbol on your sweater. "Maybe you could tell me some about how you think you've had it as bad as I have, Strider," you deride. "Enlighten me with your first-planet sob stories, would you? Of _course_ you've fought through a gritty childhood in a society where violence is a major crime and kindness is a fucking virtue."

He freezes up for half a second, and at first, you think he's about ready to challenge you to a strife for your blatant (and, quite frankly, rude) patronization. But then he swallows, slowly, and pinches the bridge of his nose. The next breath he lets out shakes, just barely, but you can tell that it does. He looks up at the ceiling, where one lonely bulb illuminates your block with a dim light.

"Obviously, you weren't checking my timeline as often as Harley's," he says eventually, in a voice that sounds like hurt disguised as disinterest.

Something about his reaction makes you want to apologize--which is incredibly strange, because you'd never apologize sincerely to anyone, especially Dave--and you instantly regret being so abrasive. In a gentler, more careful tone, you reply, "I guess I wasn't."

He nods and looks back at you. "Well, at least I'm here now to fill in the undoubtedly large, Grand Canyon-esque gaps in the story that is my decidedly not-shitty-enough life, in the eyes of Karkat Vantas," he tells you, but he does so without a hint of malice. "Shit's wide and deep as the fucking Mariana Trench, so watch your step. We don't want a repeat of '127 Hours' here. Except that was a canyon in Utah, and Mariana is in the ocean, so that doesn't totally line up--"

"Just get on with it," you butt in. He's drifting again, and you're starting to understand why Rose said she would never be able to spend more time with him than necessary.

Dave, understandably annoyed that he didn't get to finish up his overextended metaphor, lets out a small sigh, although he almost looks uneasy. "Alright, alright," he concedes. "Here's the full scoop, from a primary source."

It takes about two minutes for him to psych himself up enough to actually start talking, and you realize that his aloofness from earlier was simply him stalling. You don't know _what_ he was so adamant about putting off until he really gets into the details. Dave Strider always struck you as sort-of _off_ , but you never stopped to think about what kind of backwards, fucked-up childhood he must've had to be shaped in such a way. He tells you about the constant, out-of-nowhere swordfights at home, the mindgames, the disturbingly commonplace puppets strewn around the apartment, and much more. He has to physically stop himself when he mentions the fridge, clutching his stomach with a curled arm just so and sucking in staggered breaths through clenched teeth.

By the end of it, you feel like you've effectively shoved your foot so far down your throat that you no longer have the right to insult him or anyone else ever again. Dave's upbringing is genuinely _horrifying_ ; you can't believe that his lusus, a being meant to be a kind and vigilant caretaker in a world where compassion is a rarity, would have the mental capacity for that kind of severity or outright cruelty. Watching him retell his experiences, with every pause, every stutter, and every sudden noise that sounded like he was about to cry, was so pitiful it made you want to reach out and pap him. But you didn't let yourself scoot a single inch closer, because anything that would so much as _hint_ to you feeling an ounce of pity means something that only one other person would understand, and they wouldn't like the implications of it at all.

Dave sniffs and clears his throat. "Anyway, that's the gist of it," he concludes, but you can tell that he left out far more than what he's given. "That sound shitty enough to you yet?"

You almost utter some sort of unusually comforting sentiment, but you think better of it. " _Profoundly_ shitty," you respond instead. "I can't exactly say I was expecting any of that."

He just nods, looking oddly exhausted. "Most of my life seems to surprise people, even in-context."

You nod in turn. There isn't much else you could say to follow up such a beast of a story, so you don't try to wrack your mind for a reply.

Just before the lack of sound has the chance to become uncomfortable, Dave speaks up. "Enough about me, though. What did you want to vent about?"

You're surprised that he still wants to know what's bothering you. You roll your eyes to mask your shock. "Like you don't know," you scoff.

"Sure, I know the gist of it," he reasons, "but I wanna hear more about it. Get fuck-deep into the gritty deets, and don't be afraid to make it excruciating."

"Strider, _please_ ," you assert. "'Excruciating' doesn't even _begin_ to describe how detailed this is going to get."

You dive in right away, and he listens.

\--

You hate to say it, but Dave really is a good listener--when he wants to be, that is. He lets you talk for what feels like a whole hour (though he later confirms it to be about 85 minutes) without any sort of interruption. He doesn't seem to be as concerned about your experiences as you were about his, but that could just be because you can't fully comprehend his expressions with those damned sunglasses over his eyes.

It's extraordinarily difficult to get through the retelling without showing any sign of grief or distress, but you narrowly manage to succeed. This time.

As the weeks go by, Dave comes to your room more and more often. Both of you become more willing to share the deeper parts of your past, the parts that possibly no-one else would know. Vulnerability becomes commonplace, somehow. Sometime during his sixth visit, he actually starts crying. (Granted, his version of "crying" is just a few tears that roll down from under his shades with a sniffle or two, but it's still different enough from his usual behavior to move you.) You struggle with keeping yourself from comforting him.

After a while, you accept within yourself that there is something deeply pitiful about Dave Strider's existence. You try to ignore it as best you can, and for the most part, you do a decent job. The same can't really be said for him.

\--

On a day when you find yourself alone (of which, there are now surprisingly few--Dave seems to be around you, and you around him, almost all the time), you sit in your room and read a novel that Rose lent you some time ago. Her taste in literature is surprisingly similar to yours, and within an hour or two, you're already halfway through the book. You make sure to be extra-careful when turning the pages.

Seemingly out of nowhere, you hear a shuffling noise. You shut your book quickly and look around, but there's no one else in the room. You hesitantly open your book again and continue reading.

The noise comes again a few minutes later. This time, you put the book down and stand up, scanning the room more thoroughly. Somehow, you know that it's useless to try to look for the source at eye-level--the noise almost sounds like it's coming from above. You look up and turn around.

Right above where you were sitting, a few inches from the ceiling, is a vent with narrow slots and rusty bolts. You sigh in relief. The ventilation system on this meteor was primarily run by the (absurdly sweaty) resident mechanic; since he hasn't been around to check on it, there must be something wrong with it that's making it so noisy. Now that you think about it, it's been acting up for a while--though not quite as loudly as just then. You promptly blame everything on Zahhak's absence, not wanting to think about it any longer, and settle back down to read some more.

Just as you open your book to the correct page, though, your ear catches a slightly different noise from above, kind of like something crisp sliding against metal. A small, crumpled piece of paper floats down and lands in your lap. Before doing anything else, you look up.

A pair of amber eyes glow behind the slots of the vent. Their eyelids hang half-lidded, and they blink slowly. You already know who it is.

"Gamzee?"

He nods silently and turns away. You hear the shuffling noise one last time before it fades, too far from your room for you to hear it.

You look down at the piece of paper he gave you and smooth it out on your palm. The side facing up is blank. You flip it to see if there's anything written on the back, and sure enough, there is.

Scrawled out hastily in what you _know_ isn't purple ink, but refuse to acknowledge, is simply this:

** </>**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my gosh, i was stuck on this chapter for SO LONG! i'm sorry it took a whole month to update--it was hard to figure out how not to give gam the short end of the stick here (though you can tell i still didn't do much of a good job :P )
> 
> on the retconned meteor, i imagine that, since gamzee and karkat never had that shooshpap showdown, gamzee never felt obligated to keep in touch with karkat. but since karkat is, well, karkat, he still worried about gamzee somewhat, even though he was never as active a moirail as he was in the past. gamzee probably still checked up on karkat from time to time. for the purposes of this fic, he obviously didn't like what he saw, and although their moiraillegiance was unofficially "over", i guess he kinda had to end it for real ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (man, i gotta figure out how to change font style and color...)


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